He now talks of dredges for the new Alaskan placer fields Back to Fairbanks City Days recalled when intrepid brown fellow hit Dawson

Dawson Daily News, 8 July 1912

Jujiro Wada, the mushing Jap who brought the first news of the Fairbanks strike to Dawson, and has made numerous other trips in the North, recently blew into Fairbanks again with a new story about the placer country of Western Alaska, the Times says:

Ten years in a placer camp is a long, long time, more than five or ten times that number of years in an older community, where things move more slowly and the population does not come and go with such kaleidoscopic changes. Thus, the return of Jujiro Wada to Fairbanks might be likened almost to the return of one of the Pilgrim fathers to Plymouth, in point of the changes that have taken place in Fairbanks and the generations (placer camp generations) that have come and gone since he first visited the section and then mushed overland to Dawson ten years ago, with the news that caused the Fairbanks stampede. True, when the Dawsonites moved over the winter trail and viewed Felix Pedro’s strike the majority of them were in favor of hanging Wada, but the hardy little brown musher has since been vindicated. His estimate of the camp was the correct one, and those of that first stampede who remained have mostly prospered. Thus is always gives him much satisfaction to drop back to Fairbanks and view the progress.

Wada was in Fairbanks a few years ago during the revival of Marathon racing, and figured in several of the big contests, but he left shortly after the great Fourth of July Marathon of 1909 when, before the largest crowd ever gathered at Fairbanks, Jerry Sullivan, of Nome, with his musher’s trot, came home with the money. Since that date until Saturday night Wada has found time to cover considerable stretches of Northland, besides spending almost a year in the States.

One of Wada’s Alaskan stunts since leaving Fairbanks was the blazing of the overland trail to the Iditarod from Seward. He was hired to do this by the town of Seward and returning, reported that the route was feasible and that the Iditarod would make a good small camp. The road commission has since followed Wada’s route. The next year found Wada down in the States, where almost the first person he met was a now wealthy ex-senator from Texas, whom Wada had known twenty years before up near Point Barrow, just after the Texan had graduated from college. The two held the big talkfest and then they took in the East together, not forgetting the Great White Way at New York. After almost a year in the States under the direction of his old Point Barrow friend, Wada hied himself North once more, backed by the man from Texas whom he now represents and whom he is to meet at New Orleans when he gets outside on his present trip.

The first point visited last year after leaving San Francisco was Good News Bay, near the mouth of the Kuskokwim. Wada remained there until last November, when he heard of the Aniak river strike, when he moved up river and investigated that country. Still later he stampeded back down river to the Tulasak river and got in on the ground along Bear creek.

Returning to the Iditarod from the Tulasak, Wada took Jack Baird, formerly of Fairbanks, with him and, moving a prospecting drill, the two crossed over to the Kuskokwim in the spring and proceeded to test some of the ground on Bear creek. The indications were very favourable, hence Wada’s trip out to New Orleans to lay his findings before his backer.

To judge by the bottle of coarse gold that Wada carries with him, taken from Bear creek, some of the nuggets being worth $10, it is evident that the prospectors secured more than indications.

Bear creek and the Tulasak are not regions unknown here, for several local people are interested in the ground which was staked four years ago. Most of the staking at that time was by power of attorney and after blanketing Bear from end to end, the stakers left the country, leaving the creek tied up so that later comers could not get in, and thus it stood until this past winter, when it was restaked.

The restaking of Bear creek followed the movement of Wada from Aniak back down the Kuskokwim, for at theat time the Buhro strike on the Aniak appeared to be a frost and the miners were only too glad of an excuse to move on.

Were the Tulasak country a little different it doubtless would long since have taken its place among the producers that are on everybody’s tongue, but the ground throughout the regions is wet. True, there are five men in the camp on Bear that have each season taken out a grubstake, their returns being about $10 per day, but they have not been situated in a manner suitable for handling the water.

From the tests made by Baird and Wada the little brown musher is well satisfied that Bear creek will soon be famous as a dredging camp, for there is plenty of gold on bedrock. In fact, the Kuskokwim Commercial company will be one of the outfies that will put a dredge on Bear creek this summer. Wada does not know who their backers are.

If the grade were steeper Bear might be worked by giants, but under present conditions hydraulic methods cannot be used.

Referring to the Aniak river, which empties into the Kuskokwim about 75 miles above Tulasak, and which heads back against the same mountain as Bear creek, Wada predicts that the men on Marble creek will have a good little camp.